121 Missing (16)

It wasn't any better. By the time Lucy was rinsed from the shampoo, both Iris and Kyro were spattered with water and could pridefully present over a dozen scratches all over their arms.

"If I had known he was that bad, I wouldn't have volunteered," the girl told him truthfully, nodding her head for emphasis.

The corner of Kyro's mouth twitched upwards, but he didn't let himself smile. She was still an unknown. It would be stupid to get chummy with her before learning about the reasons why she was here.

Their eyes met, and her expression faltered. She tensed visibly. "I-I'll go then," she said quickly and evacuated the bathroom.

Her discomfort around him was a bit strange when she'd been so happy to stick to him in her fox form, but he dismissed such considerations for the moment. First, he needed to change out of these wet clothes and take a shower himself too. Then he could think of what to ask her.

When he left the bathroom, he didn't see the girl right away, and his heart skipped a beat. Could she have run away while he wasn't looking? He should have been more careful!

But as he moved into his room, he saw that the girl was still here. She had simply fallen asleep, curled up on the sofa, which was why he couldn't see her from the other side.

Her breathing was calm and steady, and he didn't have the heart to wake her up. It was 4 am, and she had been waiting for him by the gates in the pouring rain for who could say how long.

With a sigh, he left her undisturbed and went into his bedroom. Lucy was already on the bed, licking himself clean after having finished the chicken. Upon noticing Kyro, he hissed at him and returned to his work.

"You're making my whole bed wet," Kyro told him, but the cat didn't even raise its eyes up.

Before lying down, Kyro took out his phone to place it on the bedstand, but then a memory jumped at the forefront of his mind. 'Gale, that bastard, didn't he push onto me the meeting that's tomorrow morning?'

He checked his schedule, and there, at ten o'clock, the new entry shone in all of its dark glory. Murderous thoughts swirled in Kyro's mind, but he still set the alarm at seven in the morning.

"It's like there's a conspiracy going on to keep me from talking to her," he muttered to himself while glaring at his phone. There were three hours left till he had to be up again and start getting ready for the meeting.

When he lay down, he closed his eyes to sleep, but rest did not come easy. There were two many thoughts in his mind, all of them running in circles like dogs chasing their tails. Without any answers from the girl, he couldn't make any new decisions, but that didn't stop his mind from coming up with every possible scenario of why she had come to his place and acted the part of a pet.

While he thought about that, he was reminded that she was sleeping on his sofa as she had fallen. His consciousness gnawed at him, and he rose to get a thin blanket out. The temperature in his apartment wasn't low, but she might still catch a chill when sleeping like that.

The girl didn't wake when he placed the blanket over her, and he swiftly retreated into his room. 'There, the good deed of the day is done, now let me sleep for a bit.' His mind didn't calm easily, though, and he only fell into a light sleep before morning.

He had barely gotten a moment's rest when the alarm rang to wake him up. For a long while, he ignored it, but it didn't go away. He was forced to get up to turn it off, and then it was time to get ready.

After a cup of heavy coffee, he felt a bit more human, but it was a momentary relief. He'd have to drink three or four more till the meeting to be able to sit through it without nodding off.

On his way out, he glanced at the girl sleeping peacefully on the sofa, and his anger at her rose to new heights. How was it that she could stay in his apartment and sleep as much as she wanted while he was forced to leave? He was supposed to make her pay for all the times she had made a fool of him, so why was she back in his home and still living a better life than him?

When he closed the apartment's door behind himself, he took a deep breath to check himself. 'I really hope no one will have a death wish and try my patience today.' He turned back then, his eyes narrowing. 'And you, have a nice, long sleep. We're going to have a talk once I return, even if the sky decides to fall down to prevent that.'